Line of Fire

by John Lockyer, $40, Penguin, 255 pages

REVIEWED BY JOHN EWAN.

Last updated 11:20 17/03/2010

Relevant offers

Book Reviews

Handsome and hefty art publication Hauaga – The Art of John Pule So Much For That Island War in the Pacific Who said that first? Timeless Land The Whisperers No Fretful Sleeper, A Life of Bill Pearson Inheritance

Are members of the Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) merely hitmen working on the right side of the law? Not according to Line of Fire, which says most squad members will do anything to avoid firing a shot. Furthermore, most of the squad would prefer it if frontline police were not armed.

It would also appear that over-training is not an issue. There are physical standards to be maintained, and the principle of cordon, contain and appeal to be followed. But in the life-or-death situation of shoot/no shoot, there is no time to run a mental checklist on procedures.

These may be generalisations, but that is all the reader is offered in this book. Not until the final chapter is it revealed that nationally, there are about 600 callouts a year.

The reader would have been better served if told how many of those callouts were resolved without gunfire by either side or whether it is statistically more dangerous to belong to the AOS than to be on the beat.

Despite such a large number of AOS callouts, there is a lot of repetition in the book.

For example, we see incidents such as the Aramoana murders revisited through the eyes of several members who were present.

Many of the general comments made by squad members are also similar. Most seem to have been impatient to join the AOS, served for about 10 years and then resigned.

One can imagine that routine policing would be an anticlimax after being in the AOS, so it is not surprising that so many have gone on to other employment.

If the book rings bells, it is because it is based on a three-part series shown on New Zealand television.

The book includes some material that did not survive television editing.

It is an interesting but incomplete insight into what has become a New Zealand institution.

To paraphrase one of the squad members, "We can't let the bad boys know all our secrets".

The book will more than serve its purpose if it helps to raise awareness of the danger to New Zealanders of the increasing presence of methamphetamine.